JBL. John Bradshaw Layfield. This was a guy who had quite the progression in WWE. This “Wrestling Salvage Yard” isn’t about salvaging a gimmick he used or salvaging his career at a certain point, it’s giving props to sticking with it before finding the perfect gimmick late in his career.
Early WWE Run
Bradshaw arrived in WWE in December 1995—like another Texas-born World champion—as a generic cowboy: John Hawk. That name would become Justin “Hawk” Bradshaw. After beating opponents, he would “brand” them—or stamp them. The gimmick was as garden variety as they came and would be done by the end of 1996.
Honestly, WWE had enough cowboys, rednecks, and hillbillies in the company at the time, so they didn’t actually need another one with nothing that set them apart from the others. Or so you’d think because when 1997 started, here JBL was once again as a black hat cowboy. He teamed with Barry Windham as the New Blackjacks.
You can guess how that team fared. The thing about Bradshaw is that he was a consistent enough brawler and had a big, burly bruiser look to him that WWE could keep him around and eventually find something for him.
It would be a badass tag team with Farooq—or Ron Simmons—that gave him some actual direction in WWE. The Acolytes and later the Acolyte Protection Agency was a team where WWE took a tough Texan and a tougher, badass guy from Georgia and simply put them together. This is when you really have nothing planned from either guy but they have enough in common that you figure “This might work.”
The gimmick didn’t really click until the duo became the comedic Acolyte Protection Agency and we got to see them in segments more often. Now Bradshaw starts to look more interesting. It took a few years but now we’re getting there.
Bradshaw Becomes a Star
With the 2002 brand split, Bradshaw reverted to a cowboy gimmick and was pretty much the most Texan a Texan can be—which I believe was his actual gimmick. I actually liked this version of the Texan cowboy gimmick since JBL was entrenched in the hardcore division and really seemed at home even with an ultra-dated gimmick.
The division had become such that any geek off the street could come in and win the Hardcore title, so why not a cowboy? Skipping some years brings us to Bradshaw finally becoming John Bradshaw Layfield. It was 2004 and the U.S was dealing with the issue of illegal immigration from Mexico.
Eddie Guerrero was WWE champion on the SmackDown brand and there was a need for an actual foe. Bradshaw is a fellow Texan, he’s a big, burly one at that. Also, he’d done well in the stock market and could now be packaged as a rich, loud-mouthed Texan! It took nine years but Bradshaw reached his destination.
This was the character that JBL was meant to be but sometimes the timing is just off. Had the rich Texas businessman gimmick been attempted during the New Generation or the Attitude Era, it probably would’ve gone as well as a fart in church.
What Bradshaw needed the whole time was the perfect dance partner and the right climate for something that work for him. The JBL persona was the perfect heel for that time in WWE in the U.S and it was flexible enough that a Latino babyface wasn’t necessary to keep it going.
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